Disturbing news from Guantánamo, via the human rights organization Reprieve. Yesterday, in a press release, Reprieve explained that the authorities at Guantánamo have stopped force-feeding hunger-striking prisoners, a practice that has existed for ten years, because of a new Trump administration policy.”

Hunger strikers have existed at Guantánamo almost since the prison opened, and in 2013 a prison-wide hunger strike drew worldwide condemnation for President Obama’s inaction in moving towards closing the prison, as he had promised on his second day in office. Inconvenienced by Republican lawmakers, who had raised considerable obstacles to the release of prisoners, Obama had chosen not to challenge the Republicans, and had, instead, done nothing. The hunger strike changed all that, but towards the end of 2013, after the release of prisoners resumed, the authorities at Guantánamo stopped reporting the numbers of men who were on a hunger strike.

According to Reprieve, since that time, some prisoners have continued with their hunger strikes, “peacefully protesting a lack of charges or a trial,” although very little has been heard about them, with just one example reported in recent years — that of Sharqawi al-Hajj, a Yemeni held without charge or trial at Guantánamo since September 2004, whose case I reported on last month, when he weighed just 104 pounds, and when, after he refused to submit to being force-fed, he “lost consciousness and required emergency hospitalization.”

Explaining the force-feeding policy at the prison, Reprieve stated that “[t]he ten-year practice had been to force feed them when they have lost one fifth of their body weight.” However, Reprieve were told that, on September 20, “a new Senior Medical Officer (SMO) stopped tube-feeding the strikers, and ended the standard practice of closely monitoring their declining health.”

The numbers remain classified, but Reprieve suggests that it includes six “low value” prisoners; in other words, six of the 26 men who are not facing trials (ten men are facing or have had trials) and who have not been approved for release (five others are in this category).

Webmaster's Commentary:

These are not "Unlawful Combatants", as the Bush regime characterized these men; they are prisoners of war, and as such, should be afforded all the rights and priveleges afforded by the Geneva Conventions, to which, I believe, the US government is still (allegedly) a signator.

They should be either tried for their alleged crimes, or released to a country willing to take them in; it is just that simple.

But what the US military must be terrified about, once these men die from the consequences of their self-induced starvation, are their autopsies getting out, which will most likely demonstarate that for some of them, water boarding was not the only torture they endured.